Browsing by Author "Motloung, Siphiwe Maneano."

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An exploration of Black African students’ experiences of whiteness on their Black African racial identity in a South African university.
(2024) Shozi, Masimbonge Praisegod.; Motloung, Siphiwe Maneano.
Racial identity issues have gained significant attention globally, posing ongoing challenges for individuals across different racial backgrounds in different settings, and higher education has not been an exception. Although prior research has addressed race and identity, there is a need to expand the existing literature by examining the specific dimensions of race and identity that impact students in South African higher education. This study aims to address this gap by exploring the experiences of Black African students in a South African university and their encounters with Whiteness, a key aspect of their racial identity. By focusing on the unique context of South African higher education, this research seeks to contribute to a deeper understanding of the complexities surrounding race and identity within this specific setting. The study examined the experiences of Black African students with Whiteness and its impact on their Black African racial identity within a South African university. The research aimed to explore their encounters with Whiteness, their experiences of African racial identity, and their coping mechanisms and recommendations related to issues of Whiteness and Black African racial identity challenges. Using a qualitative design and interpretive research paradigm, 15 social work students were interviewed. Interviewees included undergraduate, postgraduate Masters, and Ph.D students. To analyze the interviews thematic data analysis was employed. The findings highlighted that Black African students’ experiences with Whiteness encompass multiple dimensions and pose challenges to their adaptation, mentally, economically, socially, emotionally, and academically, within the university context. These experiences often lead to the normalization of Eurocentric standards and the suppression of their Black African racial identity. The study also underscored the interconnection between Whiteness and other social categories, such as race, class, and gender. Hence the study recognizes a need for additional research to explore the impact of the intersectional interplay between the experiences of racial issues and other social categories on Black African students within the university environment.
Analysis of race and racism discourse by academics in post-apartheid Higher Education.
(2019) Motloung, Siphiwe Maneano.; Durrheim, Kevin Locksley.
Despite being in the twenty-fourth year of a democratic South Africa with a constitutionally enacted goal of non-racialism, South Africa continues to be plagued by social explosions of race and racism incidents in various contexts including higher education. While there is abundant research on race and racism issues in South Africa there is still a need for more research in the multitude of specific and varied contexts that make up South African society. This research study explicitly focuses on the specific discursive positions of academics of the delineated racial categories of black, white, coloured and Indian, within the South African post-apartheid Higher education context. The research study uses a social constructionist theoretical orientation that speaks to the methodologically complex nature of the study of the socially constructed categories of race. It was conducted at the University of KwaZulu-Natal and was guided by a qualitative interpretive paradigm and employed a non-probability, purposive sampling method. Four academics from each of the four delineated racial groups were interviewed bringing the total to sixteen in-depth detailed interviews. Discourse analysis as delineated by Antaki (2009) was used to analyse the discursive way academics speak and position themselves with regard to race and racism in a postapartheid higher education context. Coupled with discourse analysis, the researcher employed a critical Africanist standpoint in the analysis. With the limitations of qualitative studies notwithstanding in terms of generalisability, there were some discursive elements identified that can add to the knowledge on the subject matter of race and racism in our higher education South African context: i. Despite South Africa being constitutionally non-racial, nuanced reproductions of apartheid divisions continue in the post-apartheid context. Regardless of having sampled the delineated four racial categories (black, white, coloured and Indian), racial bifurcation with either the white or the black identity was evident with some Indian, coloured and black academics exhibiting denial and internalised racism. ii. To straddle the racial division and the espoused norm of an integrated rainbow nation, a deracialized discourse was used by academics. Selected academics also used race as a social construction discourse to solve the dilemma of race as an unreality and a reality. iii. Academics marginalisation discourse included experiences of being side-lined where specific and personal examples were relayed by some academics, while others discussed marginalisation in a more distanced manner. iv. The battleground on which some academics fought racial division was through the Africanisation discourse where the inferiority of black academics as compared to the superiority of white academics was expressed, being couched in terminology such as African scholarship versus scholarship which was represented as neutral. The thinking of academics regarding race and racism would appear to be progressive and forward thinking overall; however, closer discursive scrutiny reveals thinking similar to academics who were the very architects of the racial categories and racism in an apartheid South Africa. To deal with the contentious subject matter of race and racism the academics used deracialized and racialized discourse to take recognisable racial positions on specific grounds. The ability of black academics and African scholarship was in doubt as compared to the capability of white academics within scholarship which is socially constructed as white and neutral. The study contributed to current post-apartheid scholarship from a critical Africanist standpoint.